In the practice of the culinary arts, it desirable to enhance the taste experience by flavoring foods with measured quantities of spices of exacting taste. The populace has become more adept at combining various spices and recognizing the subtle differences between fresh ground spices and stored ground spices, with more and more people requesting and requiring the use of fresh ground spices in the preparation of foods.
A common implement in the kitchen is a pepper grinder, typically a single purpose device purchased for the sole purpose of grinding large kernels of pepper, generally referred to as pepper corn, into fresh ground smaller particles. The device is periodically filled from bulk or the like purchases of commonly available pepper corn and comprises a grinding means proximate an outlet to allow ground pepper to escape from the outlet as it is being ground. In use the device must be inverted so the open end faces downward and the pepper corn rests on the grinder, in a manner such that when the grinder is activated the large kernels of pepper engage the grinder and ground pepper falls through the outlet by gravity flow. Implements of this nature are generally manufactured using expensive metal parts and are generally intended to be refillable and reusable, thus requiring the purchase of bulk spices and tedious refilling of the device.
One modern device comprises a simple commercially available standard container having a threaded opening to which a molded plastic grinder mounts. Again, in use the device must be inverted so the open end faces downward and the pepper corn rests on the grinder, in a manner such that when the grinder is activated the large kernels of pepper engage the grinder and ground pepper falls through the outlet by gravity flow. The molded plastic grinder has appeal in that though it is only suitable for grinding limited amounts of spice, it can be so inexpensively manufactured that it is an insignificant cost increase to provide the grinder as an alternate to standard caps used on standard storage containers generally used for marketing and sale of large kernel spices.
Unfortunately, the manner in which the foregoing devices must be operated, e.g. inverted free flow through the outlet while grinding, though suitable in circumstances where one person is observing and controlling the quantity being applied to the food while another is grinding, is generally not convenient for the use by a cook, and certainly limiting for ascertaining the exacting quantities desired by many for the proper flavoring of food. In short, the time honored tradition of applying a "pinch" of pepper, or other spice is difficult if not impossible to measure using a free flow grinder, as is the typical measure of amounts by sight on the open hand of a traditional cook.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an inexpensive molded plastic grinding means suitable for grinding limited amounts of spices.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an inexpensive molded plastic grinding means suitable for replacing capping means on standard storage containers.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a means for grinding spices, which stores small quantities of ground spices for later use.
These and other objects of the invention will be apparent from the following description of the invention.